Mayor, says “yes”, that is the most selfish, right-wing, tea party argument I heard, I listened to it on Tuesday night, and to me that was the most offensive thing I heard all evening. That the site didn’t cost anything, that there was no public expense.

Allen asks what was the public expense that would not be spent three or four times as much if these people were out in the community?

Mayor says the city has a public health department. Who pays for it?

Allen says “How many people out there were served by the Public Health Department?”

But you should have heard the crying and pleading from dedicated Madison folk about how important it was to keep open this wholly unregulated, health-code flouting shanty town, which, it was argued, was housing the homeless.

ADDED: I was rushing to an early morning appointment as I put this post up, so let me elaborate a little.

First, my "you should have heard" is based on personal knowledge. Meade and I watched the meeting on television, and there were many extremely earnest witnesses talking about how the Occupy camp was ministering to the poor and outcast.

Second, my first link goes to a blog post by Brenda Konkel about a meeting various Occupy people had with the mayor last Friday. Konkel says she's transcribing an audiotape of that meeting. Mayor Soglin takes the position that the city has organized, well-funded services for the homeless and rejects the idea of the Occupy camp as an alternative approach to dealing with the homeless. The Occupy people are critical of the "conditions" and requirements at the city's institutions.

Steve [from Occupy says] It started as a political protest, people had good intentions, for a lot of reasons it changed into something different. And in some ways, what came out of it is better than just people protesting against the 1%. And other cities do make this work, other cities do see some potential in that. What I’m saying is Terry has, I’m in this because of Terry, I see he has some amazing skills in terms of conflict resolution, in terms of people seeing some value in their lives, that they are not getting from the existing system and I just think the city has to have some imagination about how to make use of his skills instead of telling him get lost, we have no place for you.

When the mayor accuses the Occupy folk of making a right-wing argument, he explains (as paraphrased/transcribed by Konkel):

[T]he point is we have in place a health department, we have in place a fire department, we have in place a city treasurer, we have in place all these functions that are available if needed which cost money every single day. This is not Horatio Alger, this is not a world where everyone is in there on their own. And there may have been days when the fire department wasn’t called in, but it had to be paid for every single day because we wanted to know it was available....

AND: Here's the video of the entire city council meeting. Go to 2:58:22 and hear Alderman Mark Clear say "Capitalism pays for socialism." Context:

I've been all over the map emotionally myself on this issue.... I really appreciate and value what Occupy Madison has done for this city... I'm proud that we as a community unlike many other communities in this country have been able to sustain it.... I was ready to say, early tonight, you know, April 30th/June 30th, it's not that big a deal, so let's buy us some time.... After hearing the kind of legal and logistical issues that we're faced with... I've come to the conclusion that that's not a viable option....

The way to deal with poverty in the city, he says, is through development. We need to build our tax base:

Capitalism pays for socialism. That's absolutely true. The way we will be able to help the people we want to help in our community is by having the resources to be able to do it. And the only way we can do that... is by growing our real estate base.

Would they have been more accommodating if it really were just a homeless camp and not a political statement? It says many there are homeless; what percent, how many? Why can't they be helped elsewhere?

They are insisting on it being an Occupy camp, not a homeless shelter. That's killing their argument.

"Allen says the people there are more than willing, and from many people he has spoken with there, they want to be fully cooperative with the city, but when they are asked to leave the site with no alternatives, I don’t know what they are going to do, they don’t know what they are going to do."

-- Nice city you got here mayor, shame if anything were to happen to it.

there is not some bait and switch going on here, where we had some secret plan to establish a homeless shelter in a parking lot under the cover of a political protest

*snicker*

If the Left and their Occupy hypocrites were really concerned about the homeless, they would take an example from the true-to-life move "The Blind Side" where a Christian lady takes a kid into her house and raises him as her own.

That is Charity.

But they would prefer to take other people's tax dollars and farm that out. It goes to the heart of why government cannot fill the role of private charity.

Mayor says that the notion that a standing government, not army, is unnecessary, because if you don’t directly use the service, you shouldn’t have to pay for it, the point is we have in place a health department, we have in place a fire department, we have in place a city treasurer, we have in place all these functions that are available if needed which cost money every single day. This is not Horatio Alger, this is not a world where everyone is in there on their own. And there may have been days when the fire department wasn’t called in, but it had to be paid for every single day because we wanted to know it was available.

In Horatio Alger's books, the hero is rewarded for selfless actions. The most representative of his works, Ragged Dick is about a kid who works hard, relies on the generosity of a church and the education from his roommate to help him get work, and ultimately gets his lucky break when he risks his life to save a drowning person. He chooses to live a better life, and takes action to do so. The Mayor should learn more about Alger's works before speaking again.

I've never once gone to a tea party rally or been in any discussions with tea party members who agitated for no fire departments, no police departments, etc. The people that are against those types of things fall somewhere between extreme right libertarians, anarchists, and nihilists.

Nice to see the mayor standing his ground on the 30th. I'm surprised he's let it go on this long.

Both do want to change an out of control government, but Obama wants it under a Marxist Ruler's control so we can run smooth like China, while the Tea Party wants it to go back under financial reality controllers.

Fen, charity comes in many forms. My church, on Madison’s SW side, is working with county and city officials to help provide low income housing options. Yes, there are some tax dollars involved, because of wages, but minimal, as the community and neighborhood is doing the heavy lifting on the every day. Is this “outsourcing”? Are we not supposed to be doing this? To Terry’s comment about needing to be creative with options, I think this is the type of thing he was eluding to. But, this is a longer visioned type of solution that will not fill the need that will be on the city on April 30.

It seems the Occupy exposed a very real shelter vacuum that our homeless naturally gravitated toward and short term solutions don’t seem readily apparent. I don't know where it will lead, but am glad that they're talking.

What makes anybody think Occupy is going to behave any different than they have elsewhere. THey will destroy public and private property and try to pick fights with the Police so they can film it and then proclaim "POLICE BRUTIALITY". Just give them enough time.

Thats how the left de-legitimizes authority, in prep forcing changes that favor their cause.

The mayor said that there is an established "in-take" mechanism for homeless people and if they don't avail themselves of it, it's their fault...the heartless bastard. He's probably wearing Gadsden underwear.

"But you should have heard the crying and pleading from dedicated Madison folk about how important it was to keep open this wholly unregulated, health-code flouting shanty town, which, it was argued, was housing the homeless."

Wow! That is a great right-wing argument! "We don't need your codes and regulations." As I understand it they do have certain rules of conduct--"family values" as it were. This is (well, was) great! Small government at work!

"To Terry’s comment about needing to be creative with options, I think this is the type of thing he was eluding to."

-- Have the homeless at Occupy been helped? Or are they being used by Occupy as political weapons? From this, it certainly looks like they are being exploited. Your church? It is helping people; Occupy is getting people to camp out together in squalor with minimal protections. Are they actually getting homeless people work and shelter, or are they just finding a place for them all to sleep together while using them?

BTW, notice how the homeless have been out of the news since Bush left office?

For those of you keeping score at home, this happened when Clinton took over from Bush Sr. There was endless and massive media attention on the homeless in America, calls of a epidemic, catastrophic crisis...which somehow went away after Perot split the vote and Bubba waltzed his way into 1600 Penn Ave.

Fen: They ran them out of the front of St. Paul's a while ago. I was in London about two weeks after they were shooed off and the "camp" area was still cordoned off. Guys in white suits and masks were hosing it down.

2. Smaller government. This doesn't mean NO government. Just responsible and non wasteful government. Less government. Is there anyone who thinks that there in no waste in Government and that we can't cut down on the size and scope of government intrusion?

3. Personal Responsibility. You are responsible for your own life. Charity is the responsibility of the individual which then goes back to #2. Smaller government

4. Adherence to the Constitution. Which should really be #1 because if you do that then 1 2 and 3 are taken care of.

Once again the left make the false accusation that if we want to cut spending and government waste and corruption, we must want to cut the fire department. I am tired of this strawman.I agree.

Some woman with the DNC said yesterday that "restoring America" really means returning to a time when blacks and women weren't allowed to vote.

That goes with their other strawmen of:

If you get rid of unions, suddenly people will be working 80 hours a week for $2 an hour with no weekends. That and children will be required to work 70 hours a week for pennies.

If you loosen EPA regulations all companies will take advantage and the pollution will be everywhere! The earth will die!

Of course, women and blacks won't lose the right to vote, people won't suddenly have to work more than 40 hours without overtime or lose their weekends, children won't be required to work, and companies won't start polluting.

But those same companies might hire more workers if the costs of compliance with other regulations were reduced. There might actually be some more businesses to hire workers if an entrepreneur found that the costs of compliance weren't so high as to actually discourage new business.

Once again the left make the false accusation that if we want to cut spending and government waste and corruption, we must want to cut the fire department. I am tired of this strawman.

Indeed.

Considering that "nuance" is a word that liberals love to toss around when describing their purported superior reasoning abilities, is it telling that they fail to grasp that the tea party call for fiscal responsibility is decidedly not a call for anarchy. It suggests deliberate disingenuousness. Unless they are really not as bright as they think they are.